


PMS (or "Paranormal Menstrual Syndrome")

by InfinityIllusion



Category: Bleach
Genre: Blanket Permission, Crack, Don't copy to another site, Gen, I swear it's crack, a few other potential triggers details inside, do spirits have periods?, possibly OOC Yoruichi, shower thoughts caused this, so much crack, time period: whenever it is Urahara and Yoruichi are in the Academy together, tw: periods, tw: potential body horror, well they do now, why does this sound so dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23838157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfinityIllusion/pseuds/InfinityIllusion
Summary: Welcome to Shinou Academy, and congratulations on your acceptance! For all those spirits with a womb, we’d like to take a few minutes to explain and prepare you for one of the most potentially traumatizing aspects of being a Shinigami!(You didn’t think it was just the Hollows, right?)
Relationships: Shihouin Yoruichi & Unohana Retsu, Shihouin Yoruichi & Urahara Kisuke
Comments: 10
Kudos: 29





	PMS (or "Paranormal Menstrual Syndrome")

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to @miyamellyn on tumblr and Ao3 for the encouragement and the beta!!! Any remaining mistakes are my own.
> 
> Potential triggers: period/menstrual cycle, blood, potential body horror, brief non-consensual human(spirit) experimentation, little bit of alluded to murder
> 
> ...author oversharing?
> 
> Also, for the record, this came to be because of a tumblr post about how humans are poorly evolved and cats don't have periods + I'm on my period (screw periods, periods suck, who wants a free uterus) --> wait...does Yoruichi just become a cat when she's on her period? Do spirits/Shinigami even have periods? --> this fic

* * *

The slightly glossy pamphlet was included in every entrance packet that a young Shinigami in training might receive at the beginning of their days of Shinou Academy. It wasn’t the first or second piece of paper in the packet, instead it was benignly tucked amongst the other pages, flyers, and information packets. This one in particular stood out, even if a student was only flicking through the papers. None of the other pages in the envelope were blood red after all.

In large white font that looked a little like it was melting, the pamphlet read:

**PMS: THE INS AND OUTS OF PARANORMAL MENSTRUAL SYNDROME**

In slightly smaller, blindingly white print, the pamphlet few new students expected continued.

Welcome to Shinou Academy, and congratulations on your acceptance! For all those spirits with a womb, we’d like to take a few minutes to explain and prepare you for one of the most potentially traumatizing aspects of being a Shinigami!

(You didn’t think it was just the Hollows, right?)

In this pamphlet, you’ll learn all about how high-level spirits reproduce, and how to deal with the resulting effects of this possibility!

Some interestingly drawn creatures that might have been rabbits giving a thumbs up took up the rest of the pamphlet’s front, and continued to helpfully guide the reader through the rest of the pamphlet.

For example, one of them was bleeding heavily on the next page, which had the headline: IS IT A HOLLOW HOLE?

Followed by what might be a relieved creature (it could also just be a blob with two long arms stretching from it) shouting “NO!”

As far as we are aware, no Hollow has its hole in this region. We are definitely aware some of you will think otherwise — please consider joining the Twelfth.

Instead it is merely an opening from which your body is purging the various bits and bobs needed to potentially bring a new spirit into Soul Society!

It can also be somewhat painful. If it exceeds your pain threshold please speak to someone at the Fourth.

While the pain is somewhat natural, please visit the Fourth with any questions or further concerns about the pain.

(Please note that PMS can start at any time for a spirit and with limited warning, though for most of you who might suffer from this syndrome, it will likely begin during your Academy years. Be aware of this if you are fighting a Hollow and begin bleeding — it might be natural, and using healing Kidou will NOT cease the bleeding in a way that is conducive to your wellbeing.)

An angry creature that might have been an attempt at a cute but angry version of Unohana-taichou could be seen at the bottom of the page saying, “Leave the healing to the professionals.”

The rest of the pamphlet continued in a similar vein.

On the back, surrounded by smaller rabbits and a few roses, was a barrack’s address, along with the producer of the pamphlet: the Shinigami Women’s Association.

By the time the students had entered the academy, all of the students read the pamphlet. All of them.

Some read it because it was a bright red pamphlet, some read it because of the near legendary pop quiz they would have on it, some read it out of fear, and some read it because it talked about blood.

Nevertheless, pop quiz Unohana-taichou gave on the topic within the first week of school was, by this point, near legendary. Possibly as terrifying as some of the information in the pamphlet (after all, bleeding for days was not something any Shinigami wanted to experience, even if they saw it as an inevitable part of the experience of fighting Hollows!), but helped cut down on the various panicking students in the Nurses’ offices. The Academy appreciated this, as the nurses were often stressed, having to deal with a number of ever increasingly improbable injuries that teaching relatively young spirits always resulted in.

The Fourth Division appreciated the pamphlet because they could hand it out to panicking lower level Shinigami, especially those in the Eleventh Division. Even unseated Shinigami were not particularly good at listening to the Fourth Division, unless the orders were delivered by Unohana-taichou. Frankly, however, she was too busy to have to deal with them (or that was the general consensus of the Fourth’s receptionists). The pamphlet was an easy compromise.

Panicking Shinigami could be redirected to their barracks or home, in order for them to recover and read in comfort, and Unohana-taichou was spared having to deal with every single panicking Shinigami who was experiencing their first brush with PMS.

They might inevitably return at some point (those from the Eleventh were notorious for coming in the middle of the night) for more information, supplies, and/or pain medication, but most had calmed down sufficiently that a regular Fourth Division member could handle them.

Every day, the Fourth Division thanked their patron goddess, Unohana-taichou, for her ability to handle those few who wouldn’t listen to a Fourth grunt.

Every sufferer of PMS thanked the creator of the Fourth’s Anti-PMS pills.

(Which were produced in-house, like all their medicine, because neither Unohana-taichou, nor Kotetsu-fuku-taichou, was foolish enough to give medicine-making to the Twelfth. Kurotsuchi was enough of a mad scientist and opportunistic sadist as it was.)

Few of them knew the origin of the marvelous pills, but had they been known, it’s very likely that Urahara Kisuke would have been much harder to oust.

(Or perhaps even easier, depending on who you talked to; the Shinigami as a whole would’ve fought harder to keep him, perhaps to the point of a coup, while a portion of Central 46 and the currently remaining Four Noble Families would likely have tried even harder to have him executed.)

The reason, as it was often the case for him at the time (when it wasn’t for the sake of science and curiosity), for the creation of the anti-PMS was Shihouin Yoruichi.

The Shihouin heiress had recently discovered how to perform her clan’s trademark ability: namely, the ability to transform into an animal.

“KISUKE!” she had shouted in cat form from his dorm room’s windowsill.

Urahara Kisuke popped up from behind a wall of paperwork that might’ve have actually been less his notes from a number of different classes and more a compilation of various ideas and formulas and potential ways of executing various experiment ideas said classes had sparked. Not that the teachers could do much about it, as despite the younger soul’s brilliance, he had limited desire to shine.

“Yoruichi-sama?”

“I can’t spend my life assassinating people as a cat!”

Kisuke blinked in reply.

Yoruichi huffed. “Well, I could, but that would make eating everyone’s respect in the Second Division that much harder, and probably cause my family to lose face.”

Unsaid was the very delicate tangle of power between the Five Noble Clans and the Central 46 that was currently holding Seireitei up.

“As a cat?”

“As a cat!” Yoruichi spit. “Cats are sensible creatures for assassins!”

Kisuke blinked again. “Yes they are, but they’re unfortunately lacking thumbs for opening or closing windows and doors and such things.”

“It _would_ make it more challenging to poison a person’s food, and be very inconvenient if someone were to prove allergic enough to sneeze, but not enough to die and so potentially give my presence away,” Yoruichi mused, before shaking her head. “No, I meant, they’re more sensible because they don’t bleed!”

“Yoruichi-sama, cats are creatures. Even creatures like Hollows bleed.”

“Not from a random hole in their body they’d never thought much of before!”

Kisuke’s eyes sharpened with interest. “I suppose should fix that, then, Yoruichi-sama.”

Yoruichi glared at him as if the whole thing were his fault. “Yes, you should.”

She proceeded to give herself a bath, while Kisuke rummaged around for a new scroll of paper to begin brainstorming his next experiment.

Admittedly he’d never created medicine before, but what was medicine if not some kind of poison, and really, how complicated were Shinigami bodies in the first place? They all appeared much the same, manifested their initial powers much the same...not quite unlike Hollows in that regard.

Making a note in the margin of his newest scroll to peruse that line of thought at a later date, Kisuke returned his thoughts to the newest problem with which Yoruichi-sama had generously presented him. She was quite thoughtful like that, since he’d been getting a little bored with messing with Kidou — that was much more Tessai-san’s wheelhouse than his own. He would show his friend the results he hypothesized during their next Kidou class, but there wasn’t much point in adding anything further at the moment.

But first, to create medicine for Yoruichi-sama.

The resulting (and eventually finished) product was, of course, perfect. Yoruichi-sama had no need to bleed as a human, and any of their Academy peers that Kisuke might have otherwise utilized as test subjects were all quite satisfied with the end result pill.

Kisuke also might have created a method of causing bodies to dissipate into reishi particles that much quicker, as well as the converse, and a few other tricks aside while experimenting for Yoruichi-sama, but no matter. It would likely only help him in the Second Division anyways.

* * *

Of course, as a captain, it didn’t make sense for Yoruichi to keep this creation of Kisuke’s to herself. The rest of the Academy, or at least those who were there while she and Kisuke (and Tessai, of course) were there knew anyways, and it wouldn’t be long before things spread. Yoruichi wasn’t quite captain yet, but she knew where she would be placed, and if anything, taking care of others was probably captain-ly of her to do. Promote goodwill among her followers, that kind of thing.

To that end, she got Unohana involved.

“Unohana-taichou, thank you for seeing me,” Yoruichi said, ignoring a whole lot of protocol the heir of a Noble House had to go through, since she technically wasn’t quite there as a Shinigami.

(She had yet to ascend to captaincy, that was still a few months off, but it was better to get this done now when she still had time to go herself. The things she did for her friends and minions, really.)

“Not at all Shihouin-sama. What matter have you to discuss today?” Unohana-taichou said with a serene smile. Yoruichi was pretty sure she also liked this lack of protocol when she could get away with it.

“I have a proposition for the Fourth Division, and an idea for you.”

She quirked an eyebrow in reply.

“One of my friends has created something that, while taken orally, essentially suppresses PMS with limited side effects. It’s not quite clear what the long-term effects would be, but considering few Shinigami who suffer from PMS actually end up having kids in the first place, I think we can cross that bridge when we get there for the time being and in light of the current benefits.”

Unohana-taichou visibly considered the options. “I would prefer if more tests would be run before offering this...medicine...to any Shinigami that could fall under my care.”

Yoruichi nodded. “I understand. I’ve spoken with members of the Second Division who would be willing to submit to long-term testing of this new medicine, in order to find out the long-term effects. I can assure you myself that the short-term effects are negligible.”

Yoruichi could see just how displeased Unohana-taichou was that she was being informed of this in this way, but ultimately, Second Division was the Second Division. And it wasn’t like Yoruichi wasn’t telling her before opening it up to all the rest of the Shinigami. She could’ve, and it probably wouldn’t have been traced back to her, but for the sake of the newly established Shinigami Women’s Association, she hadn’t.

“Additionally, I think making an informational pamphlet would be a fun bonding activity for the SWA and also help the Fourth!”

“Hmm, I’ll see if I can bring it up at the next meeting. You’ve given me quite a bit to think about, Shihouin-sama.”

And that would be Yoruichi’s cue to leave, which she'd actually take this time, because no one wanted to mess with the former Kenpachi. Even if Yoruichi could always assassinate her, it was poor form to kill your own medics.

Really.

...Besides, the benefits outweighed the costs of leaving now, anyways, and as long as she kept Kisuke out of it, no one would know for sure who came up with all of this when the pill eventually filtered out to the Noble Families and everyone except most of the Shiba got pissy about it.

See? It was all according to plan.

* * *

*translators note: plan means 計画.

(Sorry I couldn't resist.)

Comments and kudos welcome~!

~Fins

**Author's Note:**

> Look all, my first period arrived when I was on a road trip with my family, I can't tell you how much worse it'd be if I was battling a Hollow and my body went "GUESS WHAT? IT'S TIME TO BLEED!"
> 
> Also, I would like to be able to be a cat when I had my period. Just saying.
> 
> Also also, just graduated!Yoruichi vs. Unohana. Thoughts?


End file.
